Tom Nichols shared his ‘controversial food opinion’ on Twitter and we’ve gotta say, we have seen Tom dragged pretty badly for always pretending he’s the smartest guy in the room but this was something else. This editor almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
It all started here.
Indian food is terrible and we pretend it isn’t. https://t.co/NGOUtRUCUN
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 23, 2019
He’s wrong, of course, but even we were surprised by how angry tweeps got at him over this tweet.
Twitter: "What's your most controversial food take?"@quinncy: "Mayo is disgusting" @soledadobrien "Lettuce, why bother"@seungminkim: "PB&J is an abomination"
Twitter: *yawn*
Me: Indian food is terrible
Twitter: pic.twitter.com/CSkb3qXWoJ
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 24, 2019
Awww, poor baby.
And now, as a coda to this insane discussion about food, I will add one more point. It is revealing when people say "You will love it if you have enough of the right kind of it." That's like an American saying "if you eat enough American food you'll learn how great it is." /1
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 24, 2019
Tom should just eat some naan.
This would drive Michelin chefs, foodies, and people from cultures around the word into a paroxysm of fury. Because it *is* dumb to think that the best clam chowder or chili dogs will somehow make you more sophisticated and educate your palate. If you don't like it, you don't. /2
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 24, 2019
But 24 hours of outrage about whether it's racist to tease Americans about whether they *really* like Indian food from one comment in response to a call for controversial food takes is about as crazy as Twitter gets.
Also, Led Zeppelin still sucks.
/3x
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 24, 2019
Considering how hard Tom has seemingly worked to appease our good friends on the Left their response to his tweet on Indian food is truly *chef’s kiss*
What a truly horrible thing to say. https://t.co/TfShwpALvp
— saira rao (@sairasameerarao) November 23, 2019
You guys remember Saira, right? She has had some horrible takes about how much she hates white people in the past … you member. Tom ticked her off. Heck, she even started a hashtag: #MyFavoriteIndianFood
Am blown away by the response to #MyFavoriteIndianFood! What delicious retribution to racism.
Let’s keep the pictures and recipes going.
— saira rao (@sairasameerarao) November 24, 2019
But this gal, Shailja Patel?
Wow, he really pissed her off:
Today in white male solipsism.
From the school of "women comedians are terrible" and "non-white literatures are terrible" and "hip-hop is terrible" and "anything that doesn't cater to me and reinforce my conviction that I am the center of the universe is terrible."
We who? pic.twitter.com/qLFlHCvoJ1
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 23, 2019
She went into an entire thread.
Trips over himself with eagerness to spew racist bullshit in the name of "I'm going to say something controversial tee hee."
Then chortles at the clapback: "People are tOuChY."
Why yes, centuries of colonial slaughter, plunder, and mass starvation tend to have that effect.
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 23, 2019
This editor may have enjoyed this dragging a little more than she should have but if anyone had it coming …
"Famine or no famine, Indians will always breed like rabbits."
– Winston Churchill, on the 1943 Bengal famine, created by British colonial policies.An estimated 2-3 million people died. pic.twitter.com/ryVwk9eSjs
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
Pretty insensitive there, Tom.
I'm guessing @RadioFreeTom has never worked a restaurant job where he had to serve racist yobs all night, and be thankful if they just insulted him, instead of killing him.https://t.co/8qVmAynObD
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
I'm guessing @RadioFreeTom was never shunned in school for what was in his lunchbox. Or beaten up to jeers of "you stink of curry."
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
I'm guessing that as a child in school, @RadioFreeTom never threw away the lunches his mother got up at 5am to cook for him, and went hungry, just to be accepted by his peers.
Never told his mother he hated her food (a lie) and hardened himself against the pain on her face.
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
I'm guessing @RadioFreeTom never walked miles in the winter, in pathetically unsuitable clothes and shoes, as generations of Indian students in the West were forced to, just to find vegetarian food. Because landlords banned "curry" from the hovels they deigned to rent them.
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
But in this case, there's nothing impressive about @radiofreetom trashing the cuisine of a people already experiencing record levels of hate crimes and racial profiling in the US. It's othering, bullying, punching down in the crudest and ugliest way.
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
Crudest and ugliest way.
Congratulations, @RadioFreeTom. I see you retweeting the gleeful endorsements of your racism. You're fuelling the harassment of every South Asian call center worker, service industry or retail worker, cultural worker, student, child on the playground.
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
This is HILARIOUS.
It must be nice to never have experienced, or even imagined, being a target of hate crimes.
It must be something else to live in a bubble where no one you know has ever been a victim of hate crimes either. pic.twitter.com/otDQlmrMlg
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
The family of cultural imperialism (and boorishness) is ever-expanding. I keep wondering: who raised these people? One of the first tenets of my early childhood social training was: you never insult someone else's food. pic.twitter.com/gdRRAnRCAz
— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) November 24, 2019
Ok, so ultimately people losing their shiznit over a silly Twitter game (and that’s really what it was, folks) is pretty freakin’ ridiculous BUT considering it was Tom ‘I’m Smarter Than Everyone’ Nichols who incurred the wrath of unhinged Twitter … golf clap.
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